The Red Wolf
by SergeantPixie
Summary: "They do not call me the red wolf for my hair."


**AN: To be completely honest, I'm not entirely sure where this came from? It just kind of hit me out of left field and insisted on being written. So here it is. Review if you please.**

**The Red Wolf**

_"Now this is the Law of the Jungle -  
as old and as true as the sky;  
And the Wolf that shall keep it may prosper,  
but the Wolf that shall break it must die.  
_

_As the creeper that girdles the tree-trunk  
the Law runneth forward and back -  
For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf,  
and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack."_

_-Rudyard Kipling_

_"The Law of the Jungle"_

_The Red Wolf. _It is a name that follows her everywhere. It's whispered throughout the corridors, murmured in the great hall. _There goes the Red Wolf. _It is a legend, a myth, there are so few who actually know how she came by the name.

The Southerners treat it as a pet name, something sweet and endearing, not understanding the darkness that comes with it. For she is a sweet girl, and no such darkness could possibly follow her. They have other, prettier, reasons for her name.

They whisper their stories, swearing them to be true, but it is only the North that remembers. Sansa Stark had not always been the Red Wolf.

* * *

Margaery runs a brush through Sansa's long red hair carefully. Sansa is seated in front of her looking glass and her friend stands behind her. The younger girl closes her eyes under her gentle ministrations. Margaery smiles softly down at her, affection shining in her eyes

"You have such beautiful hair," the brunette says admiringly. Sansa blushes.

"Thank you," she replies demurely. Margaery smiles at her indulgently.

"So soft and thick, and such a pretty shade of red, it is no wonder they call you the Red Wolf," she says playfully. Sansa's spine stiffens and her eyes flutter open. Margaery notices the change instantly and stills her hand. She tries to meets Sansa's eyes in the looking glass, but her Tully blue eyes are out of focus, she is far away in a memory Margaery does not know.

"They do not call me the Red Wolf for my hair," Sansa responds softly, speaking at last. Margaery frowns. She slowly resumes her ministrations and tries to keep her voice light.

"No? Is it for all the blood that has been spilt in your name, then?" she questions teasingly, reciting another theory, far more favored than it being for her red hair. "They say a hundred men have killed in your name, all because of your beauty and grace," she recites impishly. Sansa stares at her reflection, unseeing.

"No, it is not for that either," she replies distantly. Margaery frowns again but attempts to keep her voice light.

"The roses then?" she questions, trying to hide the intensity of her curiosity. Sansa lets out a delicate snort as she recalls that particular tale.

"No, they do not call me the Red Wolf because I made red roses grow in the middle of winter," she answers scornfully. The stories Southerners came up with, really. She did not have a fair hand with gardening, she had always been afraid that it would ruin her soft hands.

Margaery tries to hide her impatience. "Why then? Why do they call you the Red Wolf?" Margaery enquires, trying her best to sound innocent. Sansa's face looks haunted, but she does her best to shove it down. At last she meets Margaery's eyes in the looking glass.

"They do not call me the Red Wolf for my hair," she repeats simply, flashing a mirthless smile that reveals her sharp little white teeth, and Margaery knows her enquiries have been dismissed. She fights against her curiosity; it was clearly a topic that Sansa did not wish to broach. So she mustered up a smile and deftly begins to braid her hair.

"I always thought Little Bird suited you more, " Margaery responds candidly, hoping to spark something in the younger girl. Her only reward is another flash of those sharp little white teeth. Margaery suppresses a shiver. It was really quite obscene for such a gentle girl to have such teeth, to have such a name. _The Red Wolf._

* * *

Margaery's curiosity only increased, so eventually she decided to broach the subject with Sansa's husband. She seeks him out the next day under the pretense of a pleasant walk through the gardens, intent on finding out what he might know about his lady wife.

They speak of all sorts of frivolous nonsense, the weather, the roses, Joffery, and at last they arrive upon the subject of his Northern wife. She pounces on her opening like one of Tommen's kittens.

"I have wondered, why do they call your lovely wife the Red Wolf?" Margaery questions with a charming smile. Tyrion smiles at her, clearly aware that she wanted more than a simple stroll in the garden.

"I believe it's for her Tully red hair," he responds dryly. Margaery holds in her frustrations.

"That's what I thought, but when I asked her she told me it was not so," she says with aching sweetness. "In fact," she continues deliberately, "she told me it was not for the roses nor the blood shed in her name," she concludes with light curiosity. Tyrion levels her with a look.

"So did my lady wife say what it was for then?" he asks, refusing to reveal what he might know. Margaery smiles sweetly, her jaw clenched.

"No, she would not tell me," she admits. "But I assumed you might know other stories, perhaps even the true one," she prods innocently. He snorts and nods once.

"I did indeed hear many other stories," he concedes. "I sought them out when I was up North, as I was curious how such a _gentle heart_, could have such a fearsome name," he admits. Margaery tries not to betray her eagerness.

She finds herself ravenous to know how this slip of a girl could be called something that implied much more than the laughable name they called her brother. The Young Wolf. It did not inspire quite the same reaction as the Red Wolf.

"Most of the stories they told me were nonsensical, the stuff of bedtime stories told to naughty children," he begins. "My particular favorite is the one which she is not a girl at all, but a she-wolf in disguise, hiding her savageness behind a ladylike mask, biding her time until she can run free under the full moon once a month. They say her fur is the color of wet blood and her eyes are an icy blue. That she is a wolf disguised as a lady," he finishes with dark humor.

"There are many other stories though, some say she is not a human nor a wolf, but an Other, come over from the Wall and enchanting us all with her beauty, hypnotizing men to spill blood in her name, set on destroying Westeros from the inside out.

"And then there is a strange little tale that depicts her as a child, wandering through the Weirdwoods only to discover the slain body of a man, and the poor little dear screamed and screamed and his blood stained her Stark gray dress. There were many more, but not one of them seemed to ring true," he concludes with a shrug. He leaves her then, and all Margaery can do is rub her aching head. She is no closer to the truth of the name then she was before.

But she is certain of one thing. Northerners have far darker imaginations than Southerners. She shivers as she recalls the stories they told of the gentle little girl she knew. It could not be.

* * *

When Margaery leaves her Sansa barely waits for the door to close before she kneels beside her trunk. She carefully rearranges her belongings until she finds what she is looking for. There at the bottom, is a dress for a small child. Sansa delicately pulls it from the trunk, slowly unfolding it. Stark gray, and daintily embroidered, it is the dress of a noblemen's daughter. It was her dress. And all down the front and all along the hem are horrific rusty brown stains. Blood stains.

Sansa touches her little nose to the bodice and sniffs it with wolfish delicacy. She can still smell the rusty, coppery scent of blood, all these years later. She swallows the saliva that pools in her mouth. She snorts in a most unladylike fashion.

"Growing red roses in winter, really," she murmurs to herself. These Southerners really have the most absurdly romantic ideas. There is nothing romantic about her name; the Red Wolf is not a sweet nickname for a sweet girl. She is not a sweet girl, not really. Closing her bright eyes, she remembers.

She was so small, when it happened, perhaps six namedays old. She had been playing alone in the garden when a big man with a dragon emblazoned on his scarlet cloak had absconded her from her home. He held his big rough hand over her mouth until they were in the Weirwoods, no one could hear her there. Her tiny feet had been tucked against his side as he carried her, and she felt the hilt of his sword against her tiny boots.

At the time, she had not understood that he had meant to kill her as a way of enacting vengeance upon her father for his part in the rebellion. But something, ugly and primitive had reared up inside her, and she knew she had to get away from him. Without thinking, she burrowed her little face into the column of his throat.

He had taken no notice, assuming she was cold. For several long moments she watched the thundering of his pulse at the side of his neck. And then an awful urge reared up inside of her. It was like nothing she had ever felt before, it was pure, primal rage, hot and suffocating. It was too much for her tiny body.

And that's when it happened. Something in her, something _other_, had opened her tiny mouth; glinting with her sharp white teeth; and she had sunk them in to the flesh of his throat. She sunk them in and ripped back with a vicious strength that did not belong to such a small child. He let out an awful scream, but that only made him choke. He dropper her and then his big, heavy body fell to the ground. He bleed out in the Weirwoods and she sat on the ground beside him, her mouth full of metallic blood, colluded, sticky blood drying on her mouth, neck, hands, dress.

She sat there for a long time, frozen with fear. The feeling that had risen in her was terrible, and yet she liked it. She relished at the taste of his blood in her mouth, the way his windpipe collapsed between her little teeth, the strangled sound he let out as he began to drown in his own blood. She was drowning in his blood too. The smell invaded her brain and made her vision hazy. It was heavenly, this red nectar of life. She wanted more. And so she sat and held it in, this terrible new urge.

It was Jon that found her, hours later. They had sent out search parties for the little lady Sansa, but her father had forbade Jon and Robb from participating. So naturally they scampered off on their own to find her. Robb was in the garden, and Jon was here. He found her in the darkness, her feet tucked neatly under her, her hands folded daintily on her lap, and blood smeared down her front. The man had not breathed in hours. She did not know why he did not breathe.

Jon had taken one look at her before he swiftly marched away to find Father. He led him back, just him, and Ned had almost wept at the sight of his daughter's first kill. She was never supposed to know that kind of anger. He had wiped the blood from her mouth with his handkerchief and scooped her into his arms.

With Jon following behind, he brought her home and told the men that a man who had tried to kidnap her had been attacked by a stray direwolf. They did not object, but no one forgot the sight of blood down the front of her dress. And thus the Red Wolf was born.

Sansa smiles without feeling. It had taken her years to understand what she had done, that she, a small girl, had killed a grown man with nothing but her bare teeth. She had ripped his throat out as a direwolf would. She understood now that he meant to kill her and leave her hanging in a tree for her father to find. But that does nothing stem her guilt.

It's not ladylike, to do such a thing. Killing was the job of a man, not a small child. Not to mention the barbaric nature of the kill. She had taken a life before she'd even known what death truly meant. And she cannot forgive herself for it.

So Sansa Stark did her best to be the very picture of a lady. She sewed and danced and did not play with her brothers. She shied away from the bloodthirsty stories Arya favored and begged for songs of Knights who loved and killed honorably. She tried so very hard to be good; to atone for her barbaric sin, but it was still there. That urge was buried in her skin; she could not forget the heavenly taste of his blood. No matter how many lemoncakes she stuffed in her mouth, she could not be rid of that taste.

The urge to kill did not die. She felt it that day they killed Lady. She felt it when they beheaded her father, and it was the combination of the beastly rage and the horror that had truly made her faint. She had felt it when they stripped and beat her for Joffery's entertainment. She fought a constant battle between herself and the other.

For she knew that if she let her win again, she would never be able to stop. She would not stop with the Lannisters or any of them that had betrayed her father. She would have killed them all, the whole of Westeros and then lay down amongst their mangled bodies, gorged on their blood and thoroughly satisfied and beastly.

Her father had never told anyone of her atrocious sin. No one had ever known the truth but for herself, Jon, and Father. And since that day, they had only mentioned it three times.

Once, when she realized what exactly death was, and her father held her as she sobbed and proclaimed herself a monster. He had taken her by the chin and swore that she was no monster, but she had never believed him. He did not know of her bloodlust.

Again, when Jon had came to her and asked what it was like to kill a man. She had tried her best to describe the feeling. The mix of pleasure and shame, the satisfaction, the confusion, the rage. He had listened solemnly and nodded once. They did not mention it again.

The final time they spoke of it was the day her father died. When they asked him for his final words, he had met her eyes, holding them to his. With a grim face, he told her, "You are the Red Wolf, do not forget it, my daughter." She did not forget.

And now she sits on the floor of her room, holding the dress to her chest like it is some precious thing instead of a ghastly reminder of the truth. Sansa Stark is not a Little Bird, delicate and pretty and easily caged and broken. She is a wolf, the Red Wolf, and the only cage she had ever known is the cage of her own skin.

She lives with the understanding that a wolf cannot be caged forever. Eventually, the other would win. And all those who had done her wrong would die. She would avenge her family, and lose herself in the process. So is the way of life. To win, she must lose.

She smiles sadly, revealing her sharp little white teeth, built for ripping throats out, and whispers "they do not call me the Red Wolf for my hair."


End file.
